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It might feel like the school year has crept up on us all, but we’ve got to accept that it is right around the corner. Some of us might still be stuck in summer vacation mode even after the start of the school year.

This is something that happens to me.

The first day of school is like jumping into an ice bath. It’s so abrupt. I feel overwhelmed. Confused. A little bit disappointed even.

This is how I feel when I’m going through change.

Change is happening all around us all of the time, whether it’s a transition that’s hard to accept or not. Change isn’t negative or positive. We don’t have to treat change as if it’s something we do not affect.

Take climate change, for example.

Climate change isn’t something we should treat as a lost cause because we can choose to fight it.

What if we repeated the same thing every day? We wouldn’t learn anything. We wouldn’t experience anything new. We would never need to worry about anything because we would already know the outcome. Risks would have no effect.

The world would be full of reused ideas. Change is normal — so routine that we don’t even realize it.

We should long for change. Change means more adventure. It means more creativity. More excitement. More surprises. If we reject change, then we reject the possibility of something new.

Change can create strong emotions, like sadness and fear. This year, some parents will see their child go off to university, and that will surely ignite some sadness but also some fear. Of course, we will feel sadness, but it’s the fear of the unknown that takes over. It’s the absence of what we know that scares us. You need to conquer the fear of the unknown in order to grow.

If we apply this mindset to the new school year, we will surely have a better start. If we sit around and just accept that the school year is approaching us without acting, we’ll be left unprepared for it. Instead, we should act and prepare ourselves because it’s something we need to do.

One way to adjust to change this school year is to live in the present. We need to stop worrying about what could happen or what has already happened or what we did or didn’t do in the past.

We can’t look down on change. Change is inevitable. It’s how we prepare ourselves for change that we should focus on.

How am I preparing for the change that’s about to arrive? I’m trying to savour the rest of summer but still get stuff done.

I should start by getting my school supplies.

Grant Boguski is a Squamish resident, student and member of the